


The Point of No Return

by compos_dementis



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Gen, Jealousy, Mental Health Issues, No Incest, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3387959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with a necklace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Point of No Return

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a work in progress, but after sitting on it since the end of season 2, I figured I might as well post it.

It begins with a necklace.

Norman tells himself, in the quiet and shameful act of the theft, that nothing is wrong. He's seventeen; it's natural for a boy his age to be curious. Surely he can't be the only teenager to rifle through his parents' things. Sliding open the sock drawer, Norman's eyes focus in the dim orange light of the bedside lamp, gaze tracing the scalloped waistband of his mother's underthings, the lacy texture of a bra strap. He doesn't touch, though, his fingers hesitant and afraid. To be honest, he's not even completely sure why he's here in the first place, driven compulsively by a deep, unconscious desire.

So instead, he swipes a necklace off the corner of the mirror. Simple in design, elegant where it would lay against his mother's chest, just above the rise of her breasts. He brings it to his face, inhales, smells her perfume--

\--and inside of him, a storm calms.

\- - - 

It begins with a necklace, which is harmless enough. He keeps it hidden in the same place he'd kept Keith Summers's belt, and that journal, and Miss Watson's pearls, in the darkest corners of his heart and mind. _What's wrong with me?_ he whispers to himself in the silence. _What the hell is wrong with me?_

If his mother notices her pendant is missing, she says nothing. Her eyes watch him over breakfast, her mouth a worried pout. She's thinking of the woods again, the gun and the tears; he doesn't have to ask to know. So he reaches across the table and rests his hand on top of hers. She turns her palm to his so their fingers lace.

_You've always been there to protect me,_ her touch says. His responds, _And I always will be._

\- - - 

But at night, when darkness smothers his bedroom in a blanket of shadow, he reaches again for that stolen necklace. A tiny piece of his mother squirreled away just for him. It stops smelling like her perfume after a few days, at which point he rubs at the jewel in the center of the pendant, closing his eyes, aching for something he cannot name.

His mother sleeps in the rocking chair in the corner of his room. Norman doesn't sleep at all.

\- - -

It begins with a necklace, which is harmless enough, and the next time Norman sneaks into her bedroom, he takes a pair of socks.

Norma doesn't wear tennis shoes, though she owns a pair, collecting dust in the back of her closet. For a more professional appearance, she wears flats, or heels, with nice soles and sometimes a little girlish buckle. So they aren't socks meant for sneakers. They aren't really socks at all, he thinks; he doesn't know the name for them, but they're delicate, thin, nearly transparent, only a few shades browner than his mother's skin.

He puts them in his pocket and keeps them in there for the entire day. While he chops vegetables for dinner (the knife chop-chop-chopping against the cutting board), he listens to his mother hum 'Little Bitty Pretty One,' and he joins in after a second, the atmosphere light and oddly cheerful after the morbid events of two weeks ago.

When she sings, he sings. When her hip knocks playfully into his, he responds in turn.

All the while, her socks remain in his pocket, balled up, secret and dirty. Norman pretends nothing is wrong. His mother is none the wiser.

\- - -

Nothing is the same anymore. They spend their days circling each other, anxious and afraid. Mother brushes her fingers through his hair, kisses his nose. Norman buries his face into her neck and feels the flutter of her pulse in her veins; feels the burn of her perfume in his nostrils; feels nothing.

The socks join the necklace, the belt, the pearls, the journal. Dirty, nasty little secrets that he mentally whips himself for. Norman is not a time bomb, instead gradually withering away, sanding himself to get to his core. He cuts away at nothing -- Mother kisses every metaphorical wound, and somehow, they only get sicker. He only gets worse.

\- - -

He's taking things in his sleep. He must be.

He wakes up one morning and there's a new present under his pillow. One of her skirts, folded neatly. He doesn't remember taking this one.

\- - -

"Have you seen my shoes?"

His mother doesn't sound accusatory, but the words startle him regardless. He's frozen in his seat, looking up at her from over his newest project (a dove), adjusting his goggles. She looks lovely in the glaring light; then again, she looks lovely no matter where she stands. The soft blonde curls of her hair seem even more yellow in the otherwise drab lighting of the cellar.

"No," he says. His own calmness surprises him.

Mother's mouth thins slightly, pursing in thought. She's wearing different lipstick than she usually does. He wonders if she's going out somewhere, if she's trying to look impressive.

It's almost like she can read his mind, because in the next second she explains, "Alex wanted to go to lunch. Talk things over."

Norman's eyebrows knit. "Alex?"

"Sheriff Romero," she reminds him. A stone drops rather suddenly into the calm waters of his mind. "He just-- wanted to talk to me. So I suggested sandwiches. There's that new little sandwich shop by the theater, I just thought--"

There's a pause, her hesitation making his skin prickle. She's looking right through him; he's a freshly washed glass, and all of his dirty secrets are apparent to her, or at least that's what it feels like when her penetrating gaze meets his own.

But then she shakes her head softly, gives him a small but concerned smile.

"You'll be okay here by yourself?"

\- - -

The intervals between their time together grow shorter and shorter, and his mother spends more and more time with Sheriff Alex Romero. Norman tells himself, repeatedly, that he's not jealous. That the long stretches of emptiness in the house are a gift to him, a chance for him to work on his birds, to read his books, to catch up on the summer homework he's supposed to be doing for English next year. 

But even as he has his book propped open on his lap, and his eyes are focused in on the words, his mind is wandering. His thoughts spin madly, always in the direction of his mother, and Romero, and what they could possibly be doing for hours on end every day. Talking, he tries convincing himself. Talking about the bypass. Talking about the city council.

His brain, rather unhelpfully, supplies him images of Mother in her underthings. Lacy bra, panties made for women much younger than her but that she pulls off with graceful finesse. He imagines Romero's callused fingers tugging down the strap of her bra, and his mouth against the pulse-point of her throat, where Norman's nose had been buried last week.

The words on his page are blurring. Norman angrily shoves the book off of his lap, and, on autopilot, makes his way up to her bedroom once more.

\- - - 

His collection grows in these long summer afternoons. The necklace, the socks, the shoes. Her skirt and her hairbrush, her lipstick, her blouse. Perhaps there had been a time where he would have been able to stop himself; would have looked objectively at this disgusting little habit, told himself it was wrong, stepped away.

He can't stop himself anymore. He's past the point of no return.

\- - -

She comes home late one night. Later than usual -- often, she's home around dinnertime, makes him something small to eat, tells him about her day even when he doesn't want to hear it. She tells him about Alex and what a good guy he is. How Alex is a lot less intense when you really get to know him. The entire time she talks, on and on, Norman remains silent and imagines her legs hooked over Romero's shoulders.

But tonight, she hadn't even come back in time for dinner. He'd had to make himself a sandwich and a glass of milk, and Dylan had been at home, made some comment about Norma having another man in her life. Norman had gone to bed angry. He's still angry, at two in the morning, when he hears the front door open and shut.

Norman closes his eyes, feigning sleep, and hears his mother climb the steps, hears his door creak gently open. She's checking on him. She shouldn't bother. But then she's gone again; he tracks her movements with his hearing alone, the shuffle of her taking off her shoes, the quiet zipper noise of her undoing her dress.

His heart pounds so loudly that he's positive she can hear it from the other room.

\- - -

The next night, it happens again. She doesn't check in on him this time, but he listens to the whisper of fabric on skin as she makes her way down the hall. But instead of heading into her bedroom, she makes her way to the shower, undressing as she goes.

Norman slips out of bed without thinking about it. Heads past Dylan's room, where his brother is sleeping curled like a puppy on his bed, and halts just outside of the bathroom door. It's not closed all the way. If he opens it, it'll creak in the dead silence and Mother will know. She'll know everything, he fears -- the thefts, the thoughts. She'll look through him and she'll see who he really is.

But in the next second, the pipes groan, and everything is drowned out by the spray of the shower. It's one-thirty, too late in the night and too early in the morning for a shower, but his mother had never cared about those things. He admires that about her, her willingness to break the rules. He closes his eyes and listens to her start to undress, the quiet muffled noise of her clothes hitting the floor, and when he opens his eyes again, he hears the metallic scrape of the shower curtain opening, and closing.

He knows he's sick, and knows that's no excuse for what he's about to do. Norman's fingers tremble as they push open the door, painfully slowly, but the creak of hinges is muted by the shower spray.

The point of no return.

\- - -

The next morning, his mother comments that he looks tired. Circles under his eyes, she says. _You haven't been sleeping well._

But she's wrong. 

It's the best he's slept in months.


End file.
